Skip to main content

The Dragon Empress: Life and Times of Tz'u-Hsi, 1835-1908, Empress Dowager of China by Marina Warner: A Book Review

The Dragon Empress: Life and Times of Tz'u-Hsi, 1835-1908, Empress Dowager of China
Author: Marina Warner
Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography
Publisher: George Weidenfeld & Nicholso
Release Date: 1972
Pages: 271
Source: My State Public Library
Synopsis: From 1861 to 1908 a woman - the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi, born the daughter of a minor mandarin - held the supreme power in China. Opportunist, ruthless, malicious, she ruled over 400 million people. This biography explores her complex personality - her extreme conventionalism, her hatred of foreigners, her passion for power and intrigue, her vanity and her delight in ritual, her extravagance and corruption, and her love of gardens, painting and the theatre. The book also portrays a China in rapid decline, as poverty, civil war and foreign exploitation and invasion brought about the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty. 

       My Review: Empress Dowager Cixi is one of history’s most controversial empresses. It was during Cixi’s rule that the rule of imperial China ended. Empress Dowager Cixi ruled for nearly fifty years. In this biography of the Empress Dowager, Cixi is portrayed as ruthless, power-hungry, and malicious.  Despite her negative qualities, the author shows how she was a strong and politically-adept woman.

      Marina Warner largely portrays Empress Dowager Cixi in a bad light. Unlike Sterling Seagrave’s biography that describes Cixi as an illiterate woman, who had no experience in politics, Marina Warner portrays her as an intelligent woman who knew how to rule. When she was the favored concubine of Emperor Xianfeng, she mostly ruled during his reign and criticized him for being a coward. During her reign as regent, she was shown to be morally corrupt, indulging in earthly pleasures such as picnics, boat rides, and theater. She was portrayed as so evil that sometimes it almost seemed very cartoonish, and at times I found it utterly comical and unbelievable.

     Overall, there is not much new in this biography. It portrayed Empress Dowager Cixi in the traditional light. There was so much negativity about her that I honestly questioned its validity in some aspects. When I looked at the sources that the author mentioned, I found that some of them were questionable. However, it was very easy to read. I also loved the illustrations and thought it enhanced the reading experience. Therefore, it was an entertaining read. However, I suggest that you should read it with caution. The best and most balanced biography of Cixi to date that I have read is Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang. After you finish reading the biographies by Marina Warner and Sterling Seagrave, immediately read the biography by Jung Chang in order to form a well-rounded portrait of the Empress Dowager.

 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author by Sophus Helle: A Book Review

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author Author: Sophus Helle Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion Publisher: Yale University Press Release Date: 2024 Pages: 228 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: The complete poems of the priestess Enheduana, the world’s first known author, newly translated from the original Sumerian.      Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.       This book is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) by Alhena Gadotti: A Book Review

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) Author: Alhena Gadotti Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: May 2, 2025 Pages: 132 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess offers the first comprehensive biography of Enheduana, daughter of Sargon of Agade and one of the most intriguing, yet elusive, women from antiquity.      Royal princess, priestess, and alleged author, Enheduana deserves as much attention as her martial relatives. A crucial contributor to her father’s military ambitions, Enheduana nonetheless wielded religious and economic power, as evidenced by primary and secondary sources. Even more interestingly, Enheduana remained alive in the cultural memory of those who came after her, so much so that works attributed to her were integrated into the scribal curriculum centuries after her death. This book aims to situate Enheduana in her own histor...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) by Lucinda Riley: A Book Review

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) Author: Lucinda Riley Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Atria Release Date: 2015 Pages: 463 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings. Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to ...
1 comment
Read more